If kids want to be on social media badly enough, they will find a way regardless of approval and permission from their parents. They get banned from Meta and TikTok, they just band together and move to an app not on the list. I agree that people need to know if something is harmful. All the effort and money going into a ban, would’ve been better spent on media literacy and education on how algorithms work, and the addictive nature of some platforms. This is the reason why none of my kids are interested in most social media. Because they know how awful it is. YouTube is a bit more grey, IMO. I filter out shorts for my kids, but they’ve learned a lot of stuff over the years. Yet Roblox isn’t banned? That should’ve been top of the list. Identity verification is a privacy and security nightmare. People should not be required to provide their identity to participate in discussions, or even worse, use their own device.

Yep. I’ve since deleted it, but I had to verify my identity on my FB account, which i’d had since 2008. Math is a thing 🙄.

They learned from countries like Australia huh? Australian here, did they learn how much its not working 😂🙄! None of my kids have anything other than YouTube, but my 9yo knew how to get around it. He doesn’t because he just watches in a browser with ad blockers and we monitor it. My high schooler reports the many and varied ways kids just changed where they go online to continue their crap. Do I think under 16s should be on social media, no. But identity verification is not going to fix that.

GrapheneOS keyboard sends to Google?

I’ve recently switched too, from iPhone 15 pro to pixel 10 pro. I’d also spent a few weeks slowly swapping out iOS apps for as many Foss as possible. I’m still fumbling my way around GOS, but mostly love it. I loathe iOS 26. Seriously wtf was that? I’m finding battery life better on the pixel, I like the Foss and android apps better. I enjoy using a bare minimum of Google apps without allowing them access to everything. If I could ditch them altogether I would, but my travel apps wouldn’t work without Google play.

For profiles, I ended up with bare minimum on my daily driver, including Gplay and travel stuff. I put my socials (decentralised only) and book apps on a separate profile. This adds a layer to access these, which helps reduce time on them.

I haven’t had a chance to play with camera apps yet, and I need to try different keyboards as I’m not loving the GOS one.

A minor complaint is not being able to send emoji reactions to text messages. I know, I know, privacy is more important than emojis. But I like annoying my husband with exploding unicorns every now and then.

Anyone thinking of changing, do it! I’m a tech noob and it was really easy to switch. Just takes a bit of research to get your head around it all.